Russia has new world champions! This time we were pleased by… the players. Yes, yes, our team has become the strongest on the planet!

What kind of tournament is this, where the Russians are enchanting?

Only lovers

We are talking about the FIFA World Cup in the 6v6 format. In this discipline, matches are played outdoors on grass, and the ball is thrown in from out with the hands, as in classic football. At the same time, the game time is closer to futsal – 25 minutes per half.

The Russian team went to the World Cup in the status of one of the favorites. Our guys have already won in the 6v6 format in 2019. The backbone of that team has survived to this day – in particular, Rustam Ramazanov and Hamid Shakhbanov continue to rock. The national team is based on the Moscow club “Titan” and reinforced with players from other regions.

Photo: © LFL

The World Cup is considered an amateur tournament and current professionals cannot play in it. But most of the players have experience playing for teams of masters. For example, Kirill Biryukov played in the FNL for SKA-Khabarovsk and in some clubs of the Second League, and Hamid Shakhbanov managed to light up in Makhachkala.

Quirks of the organizers

The next tournament with the participation of the strongest teams in the world was held in Turkey. 16 national teams came to Izmit, including from Switzerland, Austria and Belgium. The Russians, which is important, were admitted on a common basis – that is, with a flag and an anthem.

Our team got into the group with Algeria, Switzerland and Qatar. These teams are obviously unlucky to have Dmitry Smirnov’s brigade as rivals. The Russians rolled over everyone and did not notice the resistance: Algeria 6:0, Switzerland 11:0 and Qatar 3:0 – more than a solid advantage. Even organizational problems and not always objective refereeing did not prevent Russia from reaching the playoffs.

Photo: © LFL

In the quarter-finals, Bahrain was broken (2:0), and in the semi-finals, Iraq received four unanswered goals. To reach the decisive match with a goal difference of 26:0 – what could be cooler?

It’s funny that according to the grid in the semi-finals, Russia had to play with Libya, and Iraq – with Turkey. But the organizers of the World Cup decided to manually shuffle the grid literally on the day of the match. Some miracles!

More precisely from the point

In the final, Smirnov’s team was opposed by Libya. It was from her that Russia missed the only goal in the tournament – at the end of the first half, Khalifa closed a cool combination. And a little earlier, Shakhbanov scored, but the judges, in some inexplicable way, having reviewed the video replay several times, canceled the goal and instead put a free kick in our favor. It was not possible to implement it, but questions remained.

In the second half, Russia dominated, while the Libyans played frankly dirty. One of the fouls became fatal for them: already in extra time, Shakhbanov scored from the penalty spot and turned the game into overtime. Two five-minute periods went dry, and in the post-match series of blows from the spot, the Russians were stronger – 4:3. Our Cup!

Photo: © LFL

“Better to play than to coach”

On the field in Izmit, championship madness was happening. The head coach flew in the air, thrown up by his own players, and the stands roared in every sense. Even the footballers who have seen a lot shed a tear. And only the coaches kept apparent calm.

– There are no emotions. It’s very hard to be on the edge. Of course, I killed the footballer in myself a long time ago, but it’s better to play than to train, ”said Andrei Burov, coach of the Russian national team, quoted by the Amateur Football Leagues of Russia portal.

And at the very end there were awards, a flag, an anthem and a trip with the fans on the championship bus. With victory guys!